Tag: Ben Goldfarb

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Book December 16, 2020

Yesterday was a great day to be a beaver blogger, and there are precious little of those. But today isn’t bad. Why not curl up tonight by the fire to hear another beaver tale? This one hosted by The Lands Council.

Holiday Story Hour

Wednesday, December 16, 2020
6:00 PM 7:00 PM

Join us for a cozy, fire-side Holiday Story Hour to talk about the co-existence of keystone species like wolves and beavers with local authors Ben Goldfarb and Eli Francovich. Ben, author of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, and Eli will welcome us into their fireside reading nooks to read from their books and tell us the story of how it came to be. The readings and stories will be followed by a candid conversation between the two authors on coexistence with this keystone species and an audience Q&A.

We appreciate the warmth and support of YOU and your families this holiday season.

Please RSVP below to receive the Zoom link for this event.

I usually watch the news then, But beaver news has GOT to be better.

Tomorrow morning is the second planning meeting for the California Beaver Summit which is almost certainly going to happen and going to be a dam revelation. Wish us luck.

A BOOKISH BENT FOR BEAVERS

Our bookish friends with a beaver literary bent had some news recently I wanted to share. The first is that Frances Backhouse (They once were hats) recently sent her finished book to the printers and is expecting copies to hit the shelves in May. Here’s what she posted on FB:

My new beaver book for kids is almost ready to head to the printer and I’m getting ever more excited about launching it next spring. The designer at Orca Book Publishers did a fantastic job on the whole book, including this wonderful cover.

Of course Martinez kids and beavers are in it somewhere and I can’t wait to see it in person!

Beavers: Radical Rodents and Ecosystem Engineers will be published in May 2021.

Written for kids ages 9 to 13, this new book looks at the beaver’s biology and behavior and illuminates its vital role as a keystone species. It’s packed with facts and photos, as well as personal stories about conservationists, scientists and youth who are working to build a better future for our furry friends.

You can sign up for updates by adding your email to the list if you are interested here:

More news on the literary front is that Ben Goldfarb is still hard at work on his new book about road ecology. Recently he one of 8 recipients of the Whiting Grant for Nonfiction writing.

Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant

The Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant of $40,000 is awarded to writers in the process of completing a book of deeply researched and imaginatively composed nonfiction. The Whiting Foundation recognizes that these works are essential to our culture, but come into being at great cost to writers in time and resources. The grant is intended to encourage original and ambitious projects by giving recipients the additional means to do exacting research and devote time to composition.

I’m sure the much needed help with allow him to keep striving in what seems to be a very impressive effort, obviously one now affected by Covid and travel restrictions.

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More recent news from our friends at the Wildlife Trusts in England who managed to add a Beaver gift card added to their roster this year. For five pounds you can see some beavery good cheer to the naturalist in your life, and help a great cause..Click on the image to send your very own, of course we already know all the reasons why, but the background says:

This charity gift card helps look after habitat for beavers and all their friends. Wildlife is having a hard time in the UK. Habitat loss and climate change are just some of the factors that are making life harder for mammals, birds and insects.

That’s why The Wildlife Trusts are creating and protecting precious habitat and campaigning for nature’s recovery. Our mission is to protect, connect and restore at least 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030.

This gift supports our 3030 campaign. All funds raised will go towards supporting Wildlife Trust projects that look after wildlife and wild places in the UK.

Imagine such a thing in America. You really can’t can you, but it will happen someday. Just mark my words.

ZOOMING FOR BEAVERS

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Chewing, Beaver ecological impact September 27, 2020

So the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Havest and Wildlife Festival is doing something different this year – something we might have done if folks had been ready for it back in June. The October 24th event is going virtual.

We’re doing something different this year: Many events will be livestreamed; others will be available as short videos for you to watch at your leisure.

WHEN: We’ll be releasing all the video content at once (synchronous) on Saturday, October 24.
WHAT: Each video should be 5-10 minutes in length, submitted as .mov files.
SUBJECT: Family-friendly educational content primarily for elementary-aged children, focused on animals or environmental subjects. The message should represent or fulfill your organization’s mission statement.
INFO WE NEED: Please provide a high-resolution Logo for your organization, and your website that we can include.
DUE: Please submit your videos to us no later than October 1. If you need a little more time, let us know.

Now I had originally planned to just send off our standard short presentation but when I read that they were looking at presentations aimed at school-aged children I knew I had to create something new. I will say it was kind of fun trying to think of a kid-friendly way to tell our story. I’ll leave it to you to decide if it worked. I just about have it all finished and will share it soon. My very old mac is ‘baking’ it in the oven as we speak.

In the mean time I see Ben is getting ready for his ownvirtual beaver presentation as well, with an upcoming October 8th talk for the Lopez Island Library,

Virtual author talk by Ben Goldfarb, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

The Friends of the Lopez Island Library invite the public to their 2020 virtual annual meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, featuring keynote speaker Ben Goldfarb, environmental journalist and author. Goldfarb will offer a virtual presentation on his recent book “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.”

“Eager” reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of “Beaver Believers”— including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens— recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. From the Nevada deserts to the Scottish highlands, Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts.

Lopez Island is part of the San Juan Islands scattered between Washington state and Victoria, which I’m sure makes it a pretty darned interesting place to live. I’m sure they are starved for content because of Covid just like everywhere else, so I expect good turnout.

Goldfarb is the winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and Eager was named one of the best books of 2018 by the Washington Post. He is also the recipient of a 2019 Alicia Patterson Fellowship, through which he’ll be covering the global ecological impacts of roads. His writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, Science, National Geographic, The New York Times, Audubon Magazine, and many others. He edited and coordinated the Solutions Journalism Network‘s “Small Towns, Big Change” project, an award-winning multi-newsroom collaborative that produced solutions-oriented coverage of social and environmental issues. Goldfarb is happiest with a scuba tank strapped to his back or a fly rod in his hand.

Really? Scuba tank? I guess that’s the sentence they give to introduce you on the dating game. Okay, if you say so.

The presentation will be broadcast at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, as a Zoom Webinar. watch the presentation live on October 8th at 6:30pm: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82975590761

See you there!

If you can’t wait you can always watch this talk, recorded at the West Linn library in Oregon and loving powtooned by yours truly.

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BEAVERS FIREFIGHTERS IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

heidi08 Beavers and Fire Prevention September 23, 2020

Now, you know I don’t drag out the star wars award scene for just ANY achievement. I save it for the best of the best. And this is better than that. Yesterday NPR was busy shouting that beavers create climate change, I got calls from Idaho and Wisconsin and my own mother. But National Geographic was doing this:

By Ben Goldfarb

PUBLISHED September 22, 2020

The American West is ablaze with fires fueled by climate change and a century of misguided fire suppression. In California, wildfire has blackened more than three million acres; in Oregon, a once-in-a-generation crisis has forced half a million people to flee their homes. All the while, one of our most valuable firefighting allies has remained overlooked: The beaver.

A new study concludes that, by building dams, forming ponds, and digging canals, beavers irrigate vast stream corridors and create fireproof refuges in which plants and animals can shelter. In some cases, the rodents’ engineering can even stop fire in its tracks.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s a wildfire right next door,” says study leader Emily Fairfax, an ecohydrologist at California State University Channel Islands. “Beaver-dammed areas are green and happy and healthy-looking.”

BOOM! And just like that not only is Emily’s research reported in National Geographic at the very time we need to hear it the most, the entire article is WRITTEN by our good friend Ben Goldfarb. So you know it’s going to be good.

For decades, scientists have recognized that the North American beaver, Castor canadensis, provides a litany of ecological benefits throughout its range from northern Mexico to Alaska. Beaver ponds and wetlands have been shown to filter out water pollution, support salmon, sequester carbon, and attenuate floods. Researchers have long suspected that these paddle-tailed architects offer yet another crucial service: slowing the spread of wildfire.

“It’s really not complicated: water doesn’t burn,” says Joe Wheaton, a geomorphologist at Utah State University. After the Sharps Fire charred 65,000 acres in Idaho in 2018, for instance, Wheaton stumbled upon a lush pocket of green glistening within the burn zone—a beaver wetland that had withstood the flames. Yet no scientist had ever rigorously studied the phenomenon. (See California’s record blazes through the eyes of frontline firefighters.)

“Emily’s study couldn’t be more timely,” says Wheaton, who wasn’t involved in the research. “This points toward the importance of nature-based solutions and natural infrastructure, and gives us the science to back it up.”

BOOM BOOM BOOM! The beavers marches right into the headlines and every single depredation permit is suddenly an act of arson and vandalism.

A green, hydrated plant, of course, is also less flammable than a desiccated, crispy one. And that’s what makes beaver ecosystems so fireproof. In beaver-dammed stream sections, Fairfax and Whittle found, vegetation remained more than three times lusher as wildfire raced over the creek. Beavers had so thoroughly saturated their valleys that plants simply didn’t ignite.

These lifeboats don’t merely protect beavers themselves: A broad menagerie—including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and small mammals—likely hunker down in these beaver-built fire “refugia,” Fairfax says. Although wildfire is a vital force that rejuvenates habitat for some creatures, like black-backed woodpeckers, it can devastate other animal populations.

How much does California need beavers? A whole dam lot I’d say. And I am hoping this article is open on the desk of the governor and everyone at CDFW.

In addition, beavers may help an ecosystem recover from a wildfire. In northern Washington State, Alexa Whipple, the director of the Methow Beaver Project, found that beavers promoted the recovery of native species, like willow and aspen.

Beaverless streams, by contrast, were more likely to become colonized with invasive plants after a burn. Whipple also found that beaver ponds improved water quality by capturing the phosphorus-laden sediment that runs off torched hillsides. (Learn how wildfires are increasing worldwide.)

“If we have a wetter landscape, we are going to resist fire and recover from it better,” says Whipple, whose results haven’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. “My hope is that wildfire can be the gateway for people to understand the whole suite of benefits that beavers offer.”

Oh my god. Chills. I’m getting actual chills. Is it just me or is this BIG.

Despite all the good that beavers do, thousands are killed every year for flooding roads, cutting down trees, and causing other damage to human property. Employing smarter, more humane policies—using nonlethal flood-prevention devices like “Beaver Deceivers,” for example, and relocating trouble-making individuals instead of killing them—could heal our relationships with beavers and wildfire alike, Fairfax says.

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!!!!!!! I’ve been waiting for this moment for 13 years, Tears of joy are making it hard to type. I cannot wait to see the fall out from this.

“Strategically embracing beavers in local watersheds could provide reassurance that you have wet soils and wet plants around your town,” Fairfax says. In fact, as her paper’s title suggests, the U.S. Forest Service might want to consider a new animal mascot: Smokey the Beaver.

That’s me. Grinning from ear to ear. Great work Emily and Ben and Joe and Alexa. We could not be prouder. And hey half of them have been to our beaver festival and since Joe’s sister came a couple years more than half. Beavers are finally getting the credit they deserve, and I for one could not be happier.

Cue the very finest fireworks I know.

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NATURE HEALING ITSELF WITH BEAVERS

heidi08 Beaver Book, Beaver ecological impact August 14, 2020

Yesterday I listened to a very interesting webinar by WGBH in Boston which was basically author Ben Goldfarb interviewing author Judith D. Schwartz about her concept of nature using nature to heal itself. “Reindeer, Beaver, and Healing Nature With Nature”.

He of course became a Judith fan reading “Water in plain sight” which included a section on beavers and a conversation with Brock Dolman. It was interesting to think about the role nature plays in fixing itself, even nature we’ve interfered with like Reindeer. It was even more fun seeing Ben treated like the ‘help’ instead of the famous author we all know he is. At the end the host asked them what books they were currently working and before Ben got to answer the host directed him to ask HER what she was working on.

Ben of course was a good sport and did a lot of beaver praising when he was allowed. It’s wild to think that Nature might be using wildlife to combat climate change. From the beavers that show up in cities to the herded reindeer that stomp down the permafrost with their hooves.

Anyway it was a pretty fun listen. I don’t see a link to it but I’ll let you know if its online, Meanwhile there’s plenty of ordinary beaver headlines to keep us busy.

This headline in particular from a resource company made me snort my orange juice.

How Dangerous Is the Beaver?

With their oversized front teeth, beady little eyes and funny flat tails, beavers look less like crazed killers and more like the goofballs of the woods. Yet with their distinctive orange-colored incisors, these furry wonders can slash through a finger-sized tree branch with just a single chomp. So that begs the question: Are beavers dangerous to humans?

It turns out that yes, in certain circumstances, beavers might harm people and pets. But the truth is that beaver attacks make great headlines for one reason — they are incredibly rare.

“Beavers in the wild are not considered dangerous,” emails Michael Callahan, president of the Beaver Institute, which works to reduce beaver-human conflicts using non-lethal methods. “Unless they are threatened, the most aggressive behavior beavers will exhibit is slapping their paddle tail on the water to create a loud noise.”

I’ve been talking to reporters about beavers a while now, Mike. But I have to ask, how does one land such a prodigious beaver interview?